Juan del Río

Juan is one of the pioneers of the transition movement in Barcelona. In 2009, he travelled to the cradle of the transition movement, Totnes, to investigate on the ground and to see if it was applicable to the reality of Barcelona. This investigation resulted in his final thesis in a Masters in Sustainability at the UPC. Continueing on from that, here is an interview with Juan for the Semana de la Sostenibilidad (week of sustainability) of pueblo de Rivas, in the community of Madrid

Barcelona en Transició

So far this year, things have been very good for the group. Good ground has been made, here are some of the highlights…

The first local Transition Initiative in Barcelona city is up and running: San Marti La Verneda. Some weeks back the hub group partcipated in a series of events for the local barrio festival; thursday the cuba film, fri an eco urban presentation Barcelona 2030?, saturday a bike ride to participate and the party, sunday Taller d’economía social… It rocked!!! All this has come from hub member and resident in the barrio Ricart, and all his compañer@s in the barri.

A 6 week TRANSITION TRAINING course was given in Fabrica del sol (the sun factory). This training programme will hopefully become one of the key tools to helping set up local barrio (neighbourhood) initiaves. It was very well recieved and more civic centres have invited the group to set up similar training programmes around the city.

In December Barcelona did a live video conference with Camden based transitioner Alexis Rowell, part of the Agenda 21 events.

Following the Transition Network Conference:

As the Transition movement grows, deepens and spreads, it is developing strongly around themes such as localisation and social enterprise, the practicalities of making projects happen on the ground, and the critical importance of building good strong groups to underpin the whole process (to name but a few).

The conference offers the opportunity to reconnect with what’s emerging, what people are doing, as well as to hear new ideas from a range of other areas/organisations. You will meet people doing Transition in cities, towns, villages and universities up and down the country, as well as some from further afield.

Every Transition conference has had its own distinct identity, from the first one at Ruskin Mill to last year’s event at Seale Hayne. This year will be another unique experience, drawing on the passion and experience of Liverpool’s Transition groups and also a variety of other local food/community development groups in the city.

It promises to be a rich, exhilarating and energising weekend. You will also get a very real taste of what the soon-to-be-published ‘Transition Companion’ will look like and how it presents Transition in a very different way to the ‘Transition Handbook’. Soul food for Transition. See you there.

First vid – true graphical representation of the communication network flow of M15

BARCELONA REVOLUTION
(This is translated, click the CC buton to read – HD] (ENG) (FR) (IT)
above film included main image of dude in poster with megaphone saying:

is fighting to say that we have had enough of having the piss taken out of us… all of us…

Spanish RevolutionThis was the vid, that we just intended showing the first 3 mins, but the room wanted to see it all, lots of great footage with the music of muse.And one of the ones we didnt get to show you during the talk, but which we referred to was the following:The instigator of the Icelandic revolution, Hörður Torfason, sends a message of support to the Spanish people (vid in english, with spanish subtitles) transcripted in both languages here

Democracy2.0 report from Barcelona

Duncan Crowley talks to Adrienne Campbell about the assemblies in public squares in Barcelona, at the 2011 Transition conference

Last nights talk: Homage to Placa Catalunya, notes from the #spanishrevolution… went really well at the conference, about 30 people were there, really good talk, exloring in depth issues of structures of democracy, barcelona anarchist history and how it affected issues of democracy, what can be done in england…

Attached is a recording of a session on the #Spanish Revolution which was led by Juan del Río and Duncan Crowley from Barcelona en Transició and took place on 10th July 2011 at the Uk Transition Network Conference in Liverpool.

We were people in a fishbowl with ideas, responses, theories, we had exercises and workshops and games that enabled us to come together and design a future of energy descent. Beyond the glass windows and the air conditioning lay the real world. What brought it into the room were the messages that came from the outside, particularly those political stories from Transition Heathrow and from Transition Barcelona who on Sunday night showed us videos of the extraordinary uprisings that have been taking place in the main square. How thousands of people in response to the financial and political crises of the times have come together and started to discuss a different way of doing things. Earth care, people care, fairshare.

This is the story of our times: the people who have been working for years persistently, in activism, in Transition, in permaculture and medicine, who suddenly when the moment comes, bring those principles into action. In the city squares of the world the people are gathering to design a future that they want. A democracy that is not dictated from above. One that comes out of neighbourhood, community ownership, sharing of resources, consensus decision making, participation, communication. One that is immediately local, but connects with people everywhere on the planet in the same situation. It self-organises because the people who hold those principles in place put themselves in anchor positions. They hold the change. This is not leadership or control, nor is it random and chaotic. It’s another function entirely.

[…] on around the planet at the present, 2 of us travelled from Barcelona to participate in the recent Transition Conference in Liverpool, or “The Peoples Republic of Scouse” as Pete North put it, a few weeks back and while […]

[…] on around the planet at the present, 2 of us travelled from Barcelona to participate in the recent Transition Conference in Liverpool, or “The Peoples Republic of Scouse” as Pete North put it, a few weeks back and while […]